The first-year Foundation program, which prepares students for all majors at the College, is being supported by the iPad® initiative. The integration of digital media and tools are taught and used in tandem with traditional drawing and design media.

Lynn Palewicz, the chair of Foundation at Moore, has witnessed this firsthand. “So much is changing in our curriculum—we are pioneering the way for the seamless integration of technology throughout our studio courses,” she said. “We’re working from the ground up – starting with Foundation. Soon Moore will have a curriculum that teaches students to use technology as a tool alongside traditional skills and materials. To my knowledge, we are the only college approaching the incorporation of technology in this way. We are certainly happy to set the precedent.”

Students use the iPad as a sketchbook and portfolio, as well as a camera for both still and moving images. Apps on the iPad allow students to develop ideas, concepts and produce finished work in classes. It’s a device that students can take on the go, to the traditional studio classroom as well as the computer lab.

“Most of what I do or need – from a planner to a sketch pad – is in my iPad,” said Jazmin Gutierrez, a first-year curatorial studies major. “It has definitely opened a new world for me, a digital world. It’s like carrying around a digital extension of myself.”

Before coming to Moore, Geneva Champagne said she never would have imagined using a digital device to assist with a traditional type of artwork, but it works.

“I do ‘pre-sketches’ in Asketch before I do my regular drawings on paper,” said Champagne, an Illustration major. “It helps me lay out what I’m going to do and get my bearings for position, scale, even page orientation. It’s like a first draft. It has actually improved my drawings.”

Students spend time in both the studio and the computer lab working on projects that provide opportunities for exploring technology alongside traditional materials and processes.

“Being exposed to the iPad early in the college experience will give students an edge in the “real world,” Palewicz said. “Whether they’re working as an independent artist, a teacher, a curator, a designer they will already have experience and practice integrating technology into their thinking, their working and their art and design making.

“When a client presents them with a problem, they can tackle that problem with the traditional processes they learned in school, but they can also bring their digital experience to the solution,” she said.